Wednesday, September 22, 2010

Rrrrrrrrr…bang. Rrrrrrrrr…bang. “Use the throttle. More gas.” Rrrrrrrrr…bang. “No! Slowly. Use the clutch.” What the heck is a clutch?

Above is a snapshot of my most recent adventure. My friend, Jesse, and I spent a few days in Samaipata, the relaxed hill resort town near Santa Cruz, Bolivia. After visiting the town’s main tourist attraction, the pre-Colombian ruins of El Fuerte (the fortress), we decided to visit its natural attractions by way of motorbike. We rented a bike from our hostel owner. The fact that she couldn’t even turn the vehicle on should have been warning enough. Luckily, my friend used to own a Vespa and was able to figure out how to start the motorbike. Off we went on our great motorcycle adventure!

Two blocks later, the bike died. Just like that, died. We pushed it uphill 3 blocks to the nearest mechanic, but he was unable to fix it. We had to push it back over a series of hills to our hostel. We arrived drenched in sweat and demanded our money back.

Cash in hand, we headed to another motorcycle rental place. This time my friend test-drove the bike while I waited outside the store. He later told me that he used those 5 minutes to learn how to ride a geared bike, as his Vespa was automatic. Oh great.

After driving through the beautiful hills surrounding Samaipata, we reached waterfalls in the town of Cueva. We swam in the refreshingly cool water before heading back. This time it was my turn to drive. The3 problem was that not only had I never driven a geared bike (sneaking out of the house and driving around the block a couple of times with my cousins in India doesn’t really count), but I had never driven a manual vehicle in my life. After driving around the grassy parking lot for a bit, I got the hang of it, more or less. I still had trouble with certain things though, like changing gears and braking.

At one point I steered into the path of oncoming traffic, while conveniently forgetting how to brake. Oops. I veered to the right and off the road in the nick of time! After that I drove us safely back home with no more problems. My friend swears he’ll never get onto the back of a motorcycle with me driving again. Hey, it was my first time!

I wonder if Ché had this problem when he set out on his motorcycle diaries…

Saturday, September 18, 2010

I’ve always been attracted to precious stones and minerals. As a child, I spent hours in museums staring at them. Their different shapes, colors, and textures intrigued me. I loved the sharp edges of pyrite and the smooth feel of polished quartz. Nevertheless, there was little pleasurable about my experience with minerals today.

I traveled from Uyuni to Potosi in Bolivia solely for its reputation as a mining city. When Ernesto “Che” Guevara saw the miners slogging away in Potosi during his “Motorcycle Diaries,” the experience made him conscious of the plight of poor peoples throughout Latin America. Potosi surprised me. I expected an industrial town, but a walk around the city reminded me more of a hillside town in southern France than the steel-based town of Philadelphia. Facades of buildings, the interiors of cathedrals, and the views of the town were gorgeous. Then again, the steps scaling up the mountains to hillside towns looked awfully like Brazilian *favelas *(slums). Looming in the background of the Spanish colonial architecture were the signs of extreme poverty.

This morning I took a tour of the mines. We started the tour in the refinery. The minute we entered the building I thought, “This must be what hell smells like.” The room was engulfed in noxious fumes. Everywhere you turned there were whirring machines ready to chop a limb off. This tour would definitely be illegal in the U.S.

From the refinery, we proceeded into the mines armed with boots, overalls, headlamps, and helmets. The moment we entered the mine I heard “Move! Run now!” We ran back towards the entrance and narrowly avoided being run over by a mine cart. We reentered the mine, more cautiously this time, and proceeded slowly through the dark tunnels. At the sound of a cart barreling down the tracks, the five of us clung to a wall. My friends’ arms holding on to me were the only things that kept me from falling off the narrow ledge and directly into danger’s path.

At the end of the tunnel the guide pointed toward an abrupt decline and cheerfully said, “Here’s our path!” Ok, you’ve got to be kidding me. We slid down on our butts, grabbing onto electrical wire to keep us from losing our grips. At the last moment of descent, my guide took hold of my foot and stopped my freefall towards the bottom of the mine.

From there, our passage consisted of crawling on our hands and knees over the rocky ground and crouching below the low roofs. It wasn’t so much the pressure on my knees and the sharp pain in my back as the dust that killed. Despite the bandana around my mouth and nose, the toxic dust continued to enter my lungs. Out of breath and dizzy from the heat and altitude (more than 4,000 meters), I kept on ripping of my bandana and painting for air.

As we ventured further and further into the mines, we encountered miners hard at work. We were warned that conditions down in the mines were miserable, but seeing the reality was quite different from hearing about it. The miners looked straight out of Dante's *Inferno. *Their bodies dripped with sweat while their mouths bulged with coca leaves (the leaves used to make cocaine. Around 500 kilos of coca leaves are needed to produce 1 kilo of cocaine. In small quantities, the leaves keep one awake, suppress appetite, and reduce altitude sickness). Trapped underground for anywhere between 8 and 24 hours a day with no food or water, they stuff their mouths with baseball size clumps of leaves in order to numb themselves into oblivion. We were told to bring gifts for the miners, a concept I didn't understand until I saw them desperate for a drink of water or more coca. They were like the shadows in Plato's metaphor of the cave, deprived of fresh air and sunlight for too many years.

Mining earns well. Miners earn around 1.5 times Bolivian minimum wage. In spite of that, their lifespans are short. They often die within 10 years of entering the mines because of the toxins given off by the minerals or gastritis caused by the excessive chewing of coca.

When we finally emerged from the caves, I thanked god for getting out of there. I was grateful for the sunlight and the fresh, breathable air.

In the afternoon, I visited the *Casa de Moneda *(House of Currency), where currency was produced for hundreds of years. Bolivia was the center of South America and the center of wealth for the Spanish empire because of its immense deposits of minerals, in particular gold and silver. The museum detailed the history of coin-making in Bolivia. It showed African slaves exhausting their bodies keeping fires lit to melt the silver. 8 million Africans and Bolivians died in the mines. The Africans died especially quickly because they couldn't adjust to the altitude. One exhibit which stood out was a room with a man and four mules tied to a yoke. The mules would walk in a circle, powering a machine which pressed the silver down to the width of a coin. Because of the fatiguing work, the mules only lived till 2 or 3 months old. Bolivia had to import 3 to 4 mules per week from Buenos Aires in Argentina. I couldn't help but think, all that for a coin?

We ended our tour with a showcase of precious stones and minerals, typical of any museum around the world, as well as candle holders, crowns, and other objects made out of gold and silver. It contrasted starkly with my experience earlier in the day down in the mines. It makes you wonder, why are coins so important? Why not another system of barter or exchange? Coin-making powered the Bolivian economy and the Spanish empire, but during the past 40 years has become so expensive for the Bolivian government that it now relies on Chile and France to mint its currency. Ironic, no? Even though I showered for 30 minutes after the mine tour, I still can't get the smell of coal off my hands. It'll be hard to ever think of coins the same way again; something so expendable yet so significant for the lives of millions of people in Bolivia and around the world. Makes you think doesn't it?